‘Gulliver’s Travels’ Review Revue

According to the critics, Jonathan Swift would turn over in his grave if the saw the modern adaptation of his classic “Gulliver’s Travels,” opening in theaters tomorrow. Jack Black stars as Lemuel Gulliver, a mail room employee at a New York newspaper. Gulliver is in love with the travel editor at a major newspaper (Amanda Peet) and someone finangles a trip to the Bermuda Triangle on assignment (because of all the money that newspapers are throwing at first-time writers nowadays, let alone staff employees).

Emily Blunt and Jason Segel co-star as denizens of the land of miniature people Gulliver finds himself shipwrecked on.

Here’s what the critics are saying:

“Ever walk out at the end of a bad movie and feel as if your pocket has been picked? If you’ve never had that experience, you’re not seeing enough bad movies. A good way to rectify that lack is by catching “Gulliver’s Travels,” a movie of such stupendous uninspiration that, watching it, I didn’t know whether to be affronted or hornswoggled. Movies this monumentally dreadful, after all, don’t come along every day.” [Peter Rainier, Christian Science Monitor]

“But somewhere by the middle, the souffle collapses, and the movie becomes sleep-inducing. Gulliver doesn’t have much to do in Lilliput, and we notice that before he does. As short as the movie is, the screenwriters have a difficult time coming up with enough incidents to hold audience interest, and what they devise for the climax is worse than flat. It’s cartoonish in the way of a bad action movie.” [Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle]

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